Academy make it a double

REPORT Friday 25th July 2025, 11:15pm

by Mike Hunter

  Edinburgh Monarchs Academy

Probably the victory for the Stellar Monarchs Academy was more anticipated than the one for the Championship tesm. but the boys still had to do the job against a Steelers team which fought hard.

Only the home reserves Harris and Woods are normally in their side with all of the top five missing but their guests fought hard for their adopted team. The best guest on show though was Ben Trigger with a four-ride full score and full marks to Scott Wilson for getting him booked early to stand in for Dayle Wood.

Wilson said "It was a very professional performance from the boys tonight. We went into the meeting as favourites due to the Steelers injury issues but there was still a job to do and we took care of business.

"It's far from ideal that, by the nature of the league, we've gone five or six weeks without a meeting but hopefully this has created a bit of momentum for us to take into Leicester on Sunday.

"I'd like to thank Ben Trigger for his terrific performance standing in for Dayle tonight. I'd also like to thank the tremendous Monarchs supporters for staying on to support the Academy team. It was great to see them all cheering on the lads to victory."

With Trigger and Loftus winning the first two heats, the first break in the scoring came in heat 3 with McGurk winning and Loftus turning in a great ride to go round Spencer.

We held it steady over the next couple of heats and added a couple of points to the lead in heat 6.

Heat 8 took us to a 10 point lead and was a great ride by Mark Parker to back up Loftus under some pressure from Stene Pijper.

The last five heat winners were all Academy men finishing off with a 5-1 from Coles and McGurk over home guests Vale and Ingram, both impressive throughout.

The Monarchs support stayed to the end to cheer the Academy home in a double header excellently presented by the Scunthorpe promotion.

Full Result Details